HISTORY, ROMANCE AND...CATS!
Grace Elliot leads a double life as a vet by day and author of intelligent historical fiction by night. Grace is an avid reader and believes that smart people need to read romance - as an antidote to the modern world!
Grace is also obsessed by all things feline.

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Sunday, 21 July 2013

Performing for the King - at the Banqueting House

Last
Thursday I was fortunate enough to preview a new exhibition ‘Performing for theKing’ at London’s Banqueting House, Whitehall. To be fair, ‘exhibition’ is too static a word to describe this event since there is movement and music, costumes to try on as well as period characters that mingle with the visitors. With
deliberately subdued lighting to recreate the atmosphere of 17th century candlelight, this is anything but a walk-and-read
display.

A model of Inigo Jones's contraption for lowering the queen
out of a cloud

The aspect
that most fired my imagination were Inigo Jones set designs and his use of early
special effects. But first, a little background about ‘Performing for the King’ the creation of a court masque. The
aim of the Banqueting House’s curator, Jane Spooner, is to give the visitor a
sense of what went on behind the scenes at a 17th century masque
and a taste of the atmosphere.

Jones' innovative use of newly 'discovered' perspective.

To
illustrate this Jane recreates part of the 1620 production of Tempe Restored. This
masque (a play with music and dancing) was a sort of Stuart propaganda piece, pushing
the message of the Stuart’s as a uniting monarchy, bringing peace to a troubled
England and Scotland. The extravagant spectacle was designed to amaze and awe,
but of course this carried a commensurate price tag. For the ordinary working man looking in
from the outside, the cost of such masques must have rubbed salt into the wound of
their day-to-day hardships.

Another of Inigo Jones' set designs.

One of the
most eye-catching things about Tempe Restored was the innovative set design by
Inigo Jones. For maximum impact the main players (the King and Queen playing
the parts of Apollo and Diana) were to descend from the heavens in a cloud. To
achieve this Ingio Jones created a piece of scenery worked by
pulleys and powered by teams of strong men. Don’t forget this was in a time
before hydraulics and engines, so any heavy lifting had to be done by muscle
power. These moving elements were heavy and dangerous - and made a lot of noise
which was disguised by playing loud music.

The screen before which the actors perform

Inigo Jones
used tricks of perspective, (a recent ‘invention’), as well as layering, lighting and
masking to transform a 2-D stage into a 3-D drama. The clever people at the Banqueting House
give the visitor a feel for these effects with Monty
Pythonesque slides of scenery projected on the stage backdrop as the performance takes place.

The great man himself - Inigo Jones.
Meet him at Performing for the King!

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